


It Was Beautiful

by Parrannnah



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: At least for some of us, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Feels, Happy Ending, It's been a long long time, Light Angst, Not A Fix-It, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 11:27:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18637213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parrannnah/pseuds/Parrannnah
Summary: Two times Peggy and Steve had their own experiences with the song "It's Been a Long, Long Time" and one time they shared it.





	It Was Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a Fix-It fic. I enjoyed the ending to Endgame, and I know I'm VASTLY in the minority here, since I'm mostly involved in the Stucky side of this fandom. But I'm a multi- and a polyshipper, too, and this ending made me cry happy tears.
> 
> But I can't go on Twitter and be happy about it, and I can't go on Tumblr and be happy about it, and I can't go on Discord and be happy about it, so this is me being fucking happy about it.
> 
> I'm doing my best to be respectful as the people I care about work through their feelings about this movie and it's ending, but I also just really want to _be excited_ about this thing that I loved. I won't explain all the reasons I loved it here--come DM me on Twitter if you want to know.
> 
> If this isn't something you want to read, EXIT NOW. Please don't come here to be negative, please please please. Just close the tab and go about your day.
> 
> Un-Beta'd, and I'll probably come back and edit through this at some point, but not right now.

 

**_November 1945_ **

The end of the war was bittersweet for Peggy.

Two months almost to the day since Steve and the Valkyrie had gone down, and Germany surrendered.

Peggy, Howard, the Commandos, and even Colonel Philips, gathered together and raised a glass in honor of the Captain and the Sergeant, who had missed the end of the war by moments, whose sacrifices and hard work had paved the path to victory in ways the general public may never know about. The SSR had been fighting a war within a war, ever since Schmidt and Hydra had splintered from the Nazi’s.

The fighting in the Pacific went longer, another three months before Japan surrendered, and another month still before they signed the treaty.

And so it was November of 1945 by the time Peggy returned to New York; stoic, slightly hardened, and oh so very tired. The SSR was to remain intact in this new post-war world, and Peggy still had work to do to make sure the sacrifices they’d all made and endured were worth it, were honored.

But not now, not this moment. Now, she was in a favorite dress, several years out of fashion and one she had made herself, taking a Sunday afternoon to rest. It felt good, even for a moment, to be doing so mundane a thing as tidying her room, maybe reading a good book. The past few years had been a series of strange and unusual and frankly frightening events and sights, so she would revel in this simple afternoon as long as she could, letting the happiness of knowing she did everything she could to help make the world a better place outweigh the ever-present sadness of all she’d lost, just for a moment.

The radio was playing softly in the background as she finished setting her place to rights. She snagged the book she had been reading from the dresser and settled into the little patch of sun that hit her bed, curling up like a cat in her worn cotton dress and stocking feet, ready for a simple afternoon.

The next thing she knew, she was standing on a dance floor, people milling around her with laughter and joy. The band was starting something, horns loud and bright, and she felt a tap on her shoulder.

 _Not this, not again, please, I can’t_ , she thought to herself, recognizing the dream.

She had nightmares, of course, the same as everyone who’d served did. The things they’d seen, the things they’d _done,_ refusing to be ignored.

But this dream…

This dream was none of those things. This dream was cruel in a way those other dreams could never be.

Dream-Peggy turned, of course she did, a smile breaking across her face even as she knew what she’d find behind her.

He always looked wonderful in these dreams, no matter which version of him her psyche conjured up. Sometimes it was As He Had Been, small and fiery and so very beautiful. Sometimes he was in his Battle Uniform, that patriotic get up that they all relentlessly teased him for.

This time it was his dress uniform, perfectly pressed and tailored, Captain's bars gleaming on his lapels, medals shining on his chest, and the part of Peggy who knew it was a dream was getting choked up.

 _Steve_.

“Steve,” she said out loud, voice breaking with elation, shock warring with joy on her face.

He smiled that sunrise smile of his, the one that lit up the world, and stepped close to her, taking her hand. “I’m sorry I’m late, Peggy. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

She shook her head, tears sliding down her cheeks. “It’s alright,” she told him, she _always_ told him. “You’re here now.”

“I believe I owe you a dance,” he murmured, stepping closer still.

“I believe you do,” she breathed, unwilling to take her eyes off of him, so afraid he would disappear.

He reached for her then, his right hand going to her waist, his big hand and long fingers spanning the dip and curve of her, snugging her into the crook of his arm, holding her close, surrounding her with himself. He tucked the hand holding hers against his chest, his large, broad palm covering her smaller hand completely, and pressed his cheek to her hair, breathing her in in the same way she was doing to him.

Steve spun them in a slow circle as the vocals ( _God, there were words to the song this time!)_  started, the woman’s voice a perfect fit with the brassy horns.

_“_ _You'll never know how many dreams I've dreamed about you, or just how empty they all seemed without you.”_

Peggy knew what happened next, knew that soon this would be gone from her, too, and she fought, tooth an nail with her own self to stay here for just a moment longer, just for a second.

Steve lifted his head from where it had been resting against hers, eyes bright, face shining, and leaned in, lips parted. Peggy felt herself leaning up towards him, willed herself to go faster…

“ _So kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again. It's been a long, long time…”_

She woke up.

“No!” she wailed, her heart breaking all over again, face wet with silent tears.

She’d fallen asleep with the radio on, and Kitty Kallen was still singing softly from the speakers.

—

**_May 2012_ **

It had been Tony, of all people, who told him about the song.

It was four days after what was being called “The Battle of New York” ended, and Steve had been staying at the Tower since then, his SHIELD-issued apartment having been destroyed in the fight.

He was in the kitchen of the guest suite he’d been given, eating a half dozen scrambled eggs when there was a knock on his door.

He set his eggs down and wiped his hands on the towel on the counter, instinctively reaching for his sleeves and rolling them down, straightening his collar.

He wasn’t expecting who was on the other side of the door when he answered it.

“Tony?”

“Hiya, old man,” Tony said, tossing a handful of blueberries in his mouth awkwardly as he tried to keep whatever was tucked under his arm from falling. “Gonna invite me in?”

Steve stepped back, blushing, wondering where his manners had gone. He and Tony weren’t friends, per se, but they weren’t enemies, either. This was his teammate, the man who had given him a place to live in Steve’s time of need, and more importantly, this was Howard’s son. The least Steve could do for him was be polite.

“Sorry, Tony, come on in.” Steve held the door open and Tony swanned into the apartment.

“Jarvis,” Tony called out “where’s the record player?” and Steve jumped when Jarvis responded, not having known the AI was present in his rooms.

Steve followed Tony over to the living room, watching as he took the thing he’d had under his arm and set it on the console against the far wall.

“Seem’s appropriate that I celebrate with you this year, seeing as you’re here, and I can’t get down to D.C.”

Steve furrowed his brow, confused. “Celebrate what?”

Tony stood up from where he’d put the record on the turntable. “V-E Day.” He said it like Steve should know, like it was a given, and Steve felt the helplessness return. God, he hated this feeling.

“What is V-E Day?”

Tony looked astounded for a moment before something akin to understanding crossed his face. “What day did the Valkyrie go down?”

Steve took a step back, shocked. “What?”

“I asked you what day the Valkyrie, and subsequently you, took the big dip?” Tony was eyeing him thoughtfully like he was waiting for Steve to supply the last piece to a puzzle he hadn't realized was incomplete.

“M-March third,” Steve said at last.

Tony hummed in understanding. “That’s right. Couldn’t remember, see. Well, Steve, V-E Day, or Victory in Europe Day, is the day the Nazi’s surrendered fully and unconditionally. May 8th, 1945. It’s been a Stark Family Holiday ever since and was one of the one days a year I was guaranteed to see my old man, and Aunt Peggy, too, when she could make it.”

Hearing Peggy’s name so casually spoken was like a punch to the gut. It had been less than a month for him since he'd last heard her voice, but for her it had been almost seventy years, and that hurt him in a way he didn’t know he could hurt.

“Anyway,” Tony continued, setting the needle on the record before crossing to the sofa to make himself comfortable. “The only real tradition involved, besides the retelling of every daring-do all you Howling-SSR-Commando-maniac-whatevers ever accomplished, was Peggy and my dad sharing a dance at the end of the night. Same song, every year, and it always ended with Aunt Peggy having a good, long cry, which I never really understood as a kid. But then she told me this was _her_ tradition, and that Dad indulged her, and, well. Made more sense then.”

Tony was looking at Steve now, and Steve felt like he was coming through the other side of an asthma attack, breath whistling in his chest as he fought to regain the control he'd lost while listening to such a casual remembrance of the life the people he'd known had lived without him. “Playing this song is about the only thing I do myself, now. Some years I try to get down to see Aunt Peggy but this year it wasn’t in the cards. No one celebrates V-E Day anymore. But I thought,” and Tony trails off here, looking extremely uncomfortable. “I thought you might like to.”

Which is how Steve found himself crying on his couch to Harry James and Kitty Kallen, sixty-eight years away from where he wanted to be.

When he was packing up to move to D.C. a few weeks later, taking SHIELD up on their offer, he found another copy of the record propped up against the cover of his turntable, a gaudy red and gold bow stuck haphazardly on the front.

Steve couldn’t help but smile.

So it came to be the only thing he wanted to listen to any time he missed Peggy, the nature of the song bittersweet for them in the context of their brief love story. He always played it before visiting her, and he always left it on the turntable for when he came home, allowing himself one listen after the visit to lean into his sadness, his loneliness, and how much he just wanted to go home.

Which is how it came to be playing the night Nick Fury was shot.

—

**_October 1946_ **

“Finished!” He said, folding up the last of the boxes from the move.

He and Peggy, dear God he was still so damned happy to be saying that, had just finished unpacking the last of their things in their new house.

“Wonderful” Peggy said, coming into the living room and planting a kiss on his lips.

They stood there for a moment before Steve walked over to the record player, flipping through their meager little collection for the one he was looking for.

She laughed when she heard the horns start, the one she used whenever he did something that delighted her.

“Dance with me?” he said, holding his hand out.

She came closer, taking his hand and folding herself into his embrace. “Always, darling.”

They swayed together in their little living room, her face tucked into his chest, his cheek pressed against the softness of her hair.

He started to sing to her, when Kitty Kallen did, his voice deep and rough and a little off key.

_“Never thought that you would be standing here so close to me. There's so much I feel that I should say but words can wait until some other day.”_

Peggy looked up at him, eyes shining, and Steve knew he would never see such a beautiful sight as his wife in all his life.

The shared a kiss then, there in the heart of their new home together, and Steve felt like he would combust from all the joy flowing through him. Steve wrapped his arms around her, held her close, promising himself to make every second of this second chance count.

He would make this life beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

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